Author: staff

Macron became the first European leader to speak with al-Sharaa in February and invited him to visit France during that phone call. Al-Sharaa, a former Islamist rebel, has received a cautious welcome by the international community after his forces toppled former strongman Bashar Assad late last year. He has vowed to protect minority groups in Syria and pursue more inclusive policies, but sectarian violence in recent months has raised fears al-Sharaa is failing to rein in Syria’s extremist factions. Human rights groups say hundreds of people, mostly from the minority Alawite community, of which Assad was a member, were killed…

Business activity in the eurozone eked out minimal growth in April, as a faltering services sector offset a surprise manufacturing rebound, while easing inflation strengthened expectations of a European Central Bank rate cut at its next June meeting.The S&P Global Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for the eurozone rose slightly to 50.1 in April, a level that technically signals growth, but only just. The reading, revised up from an initial 49.7, revealed an economy struggling to build on momentum from the first quarter of the year.At the heart of this sluggish expansion is a divergence between sectors. Manufacturing output rose at…

BERLIN — Conservative leader Friedrich Merz did not receive enough parliamentary votes in a first round vote to be elected chancellor in a major shock on Tuesday. “Member of Parliament Friedrich Merz did not achieve the required majority of at least 316 votes,” Bundestag President, Julia Klöckner, announced after the first ballot in the Bundestag in a highly unexpected turn of events. Klöckner interrupted the Bundestag session. The parliamentary groups are now set to convene. The timing of the second vote is unclear.

All four of Moscow’s major airports were reportedly closed for hours after Ukraine launched a second consecutive night of drone attacks against the Russian capital. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Tuesday that Russian air defences intercepted 19 drones flying toward the city from different directions. The Russian official said some debris had landed on highways leading into the city, but that no casualties were reported. The attack comes ahead of planned celebrations in Moscow to commemorate the end of World War II. Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to attend the Victory Day event.”Our position is very simple for all countries travelling…

However, Merz’s critics — and in his long and turbulent political life, there have been many — say his U-turns were deliberate deceit, and that he had no intention of sticking to the old spending rules in the first place. For instance, the Greens, who opposed the “debt brake” rule that heavily restricted borrowing, have every right to feel double-crossed, as they’re no longer in government. On the other hand, the CDU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), are acting as if they won the February election, even though they suffered their most ignominious result in over a century. The…

The strategy comes as part of a broader EU-wide effort to rein in foreign investors from taking control of European companies in strategic or sensitive sectors, such as when Chinese shipping giant Cosco attempted to buy a container terminal in the Port of Hamburg two years ago. The draft document waters down the original Commission proposal by narrowing the list of strategic sectors subject to mandatory FDI screening, where the EU executive said that EU countries would be required to screen foreign investments into AI, chips, quantum technologies, energy technologies, space, drones or critical medicines. But while it adds more…

The film sector will not fare well if it is swept onto the negotiation table in ongoing trade tussle between Brussels and Washington, a key EU film industry representative has told Euronews.“We don’t want to be part of the overall negotiation on tariffs between Europeans and Americans,” Juliette Prissard, General Delegate of Eurocinema, which represents film producers in Brussels, told Euronews, adding: “There is always the risk that culture will take second place to EU legislation such as that on digital.” According to Prissard, EU legislation on audiovisual could hold less value in the eyes of the European Commission than other EU rulebooks,…

That initiative was inspired by ChatGPT’s rise to fame in late 2022. The instant popularity of a chatbot that could perform several tasks upon request, such as generating text, code and now also images and video, upended the bloc’s drafting of the AI Act.  Generative AI wasn’t a thing when the Commission first presented its AI Act proposal in 2021, which left regulators scrambling. “People were saying: we will not go through five more years to wait for a regulation, so let’s try to force generative AI into this Act,” Audrey Herblin-Stoop, a top lobbyist at French OpenAI rival Mistral, recalled…

Dieser Tag steht ganz im Zeichen der Kanzlerwahl. Friedrich Merz ist an seinem Ziel, dem wichtigsten Staatsamt, angekommen. Wie er dafür sorgen kann, dass ihm seine Regierung gelingt, fasst Gordon Repinski zusammen.  Der Ex-FDP-Fraktionschef im Bundestag, Christian Dürr, ist Gast im 200-Sekunden-Interview und erklärt, warum er einen Kanzler Merz nicht seine Stimme geben würde und wie es sich anfühlt heute nur noch Zuschauer zu sein, bei dem was im Reichstagsgebäude passiert.  Rixa Fürsen berichtet, warum die CDU voraussichtlich Anspruch auf den Posten des Wehrbeauftragten erheben wird und welcher Mann in der Union aktuell beste Aussichten darauf hat.  Und: Großer Zapfenstreich…

In rural areas across the globe, women spend an estimated 40 billion hours a year fetching water, as much as the entire working time spent in France. Water is not only essential for life, but it is also a driving force for — and foundational to — economic growth. The provision of water supply, sanitation and wastewater services (WASH) generates substantial benefits for public health, the economy and the environment.  Evidence underscoring the significant economic return on investments in climate-resilient water and sanitation infrastructure is clear. According to the UN, every euro invested in water and sanitation projects generates four…